How to Breathe Underwater

by Julie Orringer

  Before, in Jack’s car, it had frightened her. Now she wanted to hold it in her hand. It was cold and heavy and small enough to fit her palm. The muzzle was clean and oiled, and there was the trigger, a smooth place for an index finger. She pulled back the slide like Jack had showed her. The gun was still loaded. She pointed it into the foot well and said, “Freeze!”

  She could do anything now. Not that she’d do anything. But here she was, no longer a virgin, and in her hand she had this gun. They were going to Detroit. They were going to see Jack Jacob. She put the gun back into the glove compartment and waited for Melissa to come out.

  The rest of the way to Detroit, Lucy didn’t say a word. She knew Melissa wanted her to ask questions, to act interested in what was going to happen, but she refused to do it. Beside her on the Cadillac seat, Melissa tried to act like she didn’t care. She sang along with the radio as the suburbs of Detroit rushed by, their shopping malls and car showrooms and soaring Methodist churches glowing alongside the highway. They passed the eighty-foot-high Uniroyal tire and the old New Silver Rolladium of Southfield, with its spotlit fake palm trees and its mural of a freestyle skater in silhouette. Then they pulled off the highway into Royal Oak. The houses there were cramped little castles of white or pink brick, each with its green cropped lawn. Jack’s house was a small Tudor in a row of Tudor houses. It was shabbier than the others, somehow—its shutters peeling, its plaster lawn gnome missing the peak of his cap. But the lawn had been mowed recently, and a pair of Jack’s grassy sneakers stood beside the door.

  “You have to promise you won’t do anything stupid,” Melissa said as she killed the motor. “You’ve got to stop freaking right now. Think of yourself as my maid of honor. Your job is to help me stay calm before my wedding.”

  “Okay,” Lucy said. She felt prickly-skinned and powerful, ready to commit reckless deeds. She’d replaced the key in the pearl-gray box but left the glove compartment unlocked.

  They got out of the car with their things and went to the door, and Melissa rang the bell. She made an attempt at door-waiting nonchalance, smacking her gum and twirling the keys, but it didn’t last long. After a minute she got up on her toes and tried to look through the tiny sheer-curtained window at the top of the door.

  “Where is he?” she said. “He’d better be here.”

  Then he was there, opening the door for them, welcoming them into the living room, with its slipcovered gold couches and its smell of old chicken soup. Melissa jumped at him and he picked her up, swinging her. One of her black shoes fell off. Lucy tried to get him to look at her, but he kept avoiding her eyes. Her stomach lurched and she had to sit down on a couch. A curl of torn plastic bit into her thigh. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Jack was saying. “Look at you two.” Lucy adjusted her thigh-highs and crossed her legs. She told herself to relax. She stared at the carpet with its pattern of gold scrolls and turquoise roses, a terrible carpet, perhaps the world’s worst.

  “Don’t sit there,” Jack said. “Come upstairs. See my room.”

  He started up the stairs and Melissa followed. “Come on,” she called to Lucy.

  Lucy went, dragging her overnight bag. She followed Jack and Melissa down the hall, down a strip of olive-colored carpet, past the pictures of Jack’s family and Jack himself as a kid with dark eyes and pin-straight black hair. They passed a closed bedroom door. Inside, someone was snoring loudly.

  “My mom,” Jack said. “Out cold.”

  In his room, white Christmas lights blinked around the ceiling and Pink Floyd’s Delicate Sound of Thunder played on the stereo. There was a ratty football-helmet rug half covered by an air mattress, which smelled new, as if purchased for the occasion. The air mattress was made up in black sheets. A TV sat near it on the rug. Beside the TV, on a boy-sized desk, stood a glossy black ice bucket, three glasses, and bottles of gin and peach schnapps and tonic water and vodka. On a bookshelf were some dusty baseball trophies and a framed bar mitzvah certificate. The air was heavy with the smells of vinyl and sandalwood incense.

  “The luxury lounge,” Jack said.

  Melissa threw her bag onto the floor. “Let’s go out,” she said. “There must be a party or something.”

  “A party?” Jack said. He seemed disappointed.

  “It’s early. I want to go out. Lucy does too, don’t you, Lucy?”

  “Sure,” Lucy said. Anything to get away from that room, with its terrible smell and its giant mattress.

  “This town’s dead,” Jack said. “The party’s right here tonight.”

  “I know what we should do!” Melissa said. “The Silver Rolladium. We passed it on the way here. We have to go.”

  “I don’t skate,” Jack said. “As a rule.”

  “We have to,” Melissa said. “Please, please. We can leave if it sucks.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Jack said, holding the back of his neck with one hand. “Okay. But just for a little while. I don’t want to spend all night there.”

  Melissa gave Lucy a look of triumph. Then she took her tiny makeup bag and disappeared into the bathroom, down the hall. Lucy stood on the football-helmet rug and looked at Jack.

  “What?” Jack said.

  When Lucy didn’t respond, he said, “Let’s go downstairs. Let’s have a talk.” He took her hand and led her downstairs to the kitchen, where Lucy sat on a yellow stool at the breakfast bar. Jack opened the refrigerator and took out a carton of orange juice. He opened it, sniffed it, put it away. He took out a can of Fanta Grape. “You want a Fanta Grape?” he said.

  Lucy shook her head.

  “How about a real drink? I know I could use one.” Jack went into another room and came back with a cut-glass decanter. “This is Scotch,” he said. “Is Scotch okay?”

  “I don’t care,” Lucy said. It was hard to make her voice sound the way she wanted it to, steady and glacier-cold. Maybe a drink would help.

  Jack put ice cubes into a glass and poured Lucy an inch of Scotch. He set the glass before her. It smelled like sweetened nail polish remover. She lifted the glass and drank. It was horrible, bitter, burning. She coughed and wiped her mouth.

  “Shit,” Jack said. “That’s some drinking.” He took the empty glass and poured some for himself. “You look hot in that skirt,” he said. “You really do.”

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  Jack took a drink of Scotch. “Lucy,” he said, “I have to explain a few things.”

  “No need. Melissa told me everything.”

  “You don’t understand, though.”

  “What’s to understand? You’re engaged. Congratulations.”

  He gave her a moist smile. “Let’s not worry about all that tonight. We should just have a good time. We know how to have a good time together, don’t we?” He put a hand on her arm and rubbed the inside of her wrist with his thumb.

  Lucy pulled away. “I’m going to tell Melissa about last weekend.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I think it’s a fabulous idea.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “Tell her. I’ll say it’s not true. Who do you think she’s going to believe?” He tilted his head at her and smiled.

  Lucy sat back, feeling the heat of the Scotch in her blood. A hum like bees filled her head. Now Melissa was coming down the stairs, crossing one foot in front of the other like a Miss America contestant, singing “Ready for skating, ready to go roller skating” to the tune of “Getting to Know You.” In the kitchen she leaned over the bar to give them a look down her shirt. Lucy could see the black bow at the center of her bra.

  “Ouch, baby,” Jack said. “Put those away.”

  “Are we going?” said Melissa.

  They were.

  At the skating rink the air was thick with smoke-machine smoke, and the skaters shot through beams of flashing light. The floor was packed. All the girls were dressed in small tight clothes, their hair done in elaborate braids or ponytails. It was house night, and Lucy could feel the drums at the center
of her chest. Jack draped one arm around her shoulders and the other around Melissa’s. He steered them through the crowd toward the skate-rental booth, looking as if he were loving this.

  “Check out these walls,” he said, and Lucy did. The walls were lined with sparkly black carpet, meant as a crash guard for the skaters. “It’s like a porno movie,” he said. “It’s like we could all just lie down and fuck anywhere, if gravity suddenly went haywire.”

  Melissa giggled and gave him a slap on the arm. “You’re so bad,” she said.

  They rented skates and put them on. Before Lucy could get the feel of them, Melissa took her by the hand and pulled her out onto the wooden skating floor. Lucy stumbled along, trying to keep her balance. She’d hated skating ever since she was a kid. She’d never wanted those white skates with pink pom-poms like the other kids had. She’d never tried to win the games at skating parties. Now her arms and legs felt numb from the whiskey, and the music was a dull throb inside her head. Jack kept giving her a heavy-lidded look as they skated, a half smile meant to be sexy. She wanted to jab her fingers right into his eyes and watch him double over in pain. The worst part was that when she let her mind go, she was still imagining him apologizing to her, on his knees even, telling her how sorry he was, what an asshole he was, and it was really Lucy he wanted to marry and take to California.

  Lucy caught up with Melissa and pulled her toward the girls’ room. Melissa was laughing, pushing strands of her ponytail out of her face and adjusting the lace tops of her thigh-highs. They both skidded when their skates hit the girls’ room tiles.

  “These tights are going to be totally wrecked,” Melissa said, “but it’s worth it.” She leaned against the wall and pulled a crumpled cigarette from her pocket. When she tried to straighten it out, it broke. “Fuck,” she said. “Do you have any?”

  “No,” Lucy said.

  Melissa threw the cigarette away and checked her eyebrows in the mirror. Then she turned to Lucy and smoothed her curls with one cool hand. “You look like shit. And you smell like whiskey.” She laughed. “You know what I always thought?” she said, leaning against a sink. “I thought I could take you and make you into a totally new girl. When I met you at that convention, I said to myself, That girl’s kind of pretty but she dresses lame and acts immature. I bet I could make her so cool.”

  “I’m not immature,” Lucy said.

  “Oh, I know, I know,” Melissa said. “Your job and all that, doing good deeds for the pregnant teens. Plus I think you lost some weight lately.”

  Lucy thought about the gun, about the weight of it in her hand, and the smooth sheen of the barrel, and the arc of the trigger against her index finger. She imagined aiming, squeezing, then the explosion and the peppery smell of gunpowder, like when she used to shoot rifles at summer camp.

  “Our friends are so going to freak when you tell them,” Melissa said. “Think about two weeks from now at Nationals! Everyone’s going to be like, She did what? Oh, my God. Her and Jack? You have to tell everyone we were seeing each other for months and it was this big secret.”

  The restroom door banged open and a group of younger girls skated in. They wore tight glitter jeans and pastel-colored tank tops, and they were all talking about someone named Connie: Connie better get her hands off Trey. Connie didn’t know who she was messing with. Connie was going to regret she ever came here. The girls leaned toward the mirror to reap-ply their lip gloss. Every now and then they glanced at Lucy and Melissa as if to make sure they were paying attention.

  “Any of you have a cigarette?” Melissa asked.

  “Are you crazy?” Lucy said. “They’re like twelve.”

  One of the girls rolled her eyes. “We’re fourteen,” she said.

  Another girl opened the door. “Come on, you guys,” she said. “It’s the couples’ skate.” The lights had dimmed, and there was a slow song playing. The younger girls finished putting on their makeup and filed out.

  “There’s no way those girls are fourteen,” Melissa said.

  “I know,” Lucy said. “It’s depressing.” She thought of a girl she’d been tutoring earlier that week at the shelter, a skinny, dark-eyed girl named Tiana Woods. She was trying to pass pre-algebra, but her baby had an ear infection and wouldn’t stop crying. The girls in the glitter jeans had looked about Tiana’s age. “Listen to me,” Lucy said. “Just don’t go out to California. I know what I’m talking about.”

  Melissa sighed. “How could you understand?” she said. “Imagine if your mom had run off with some asshole. Imagine if your dad was married to the world’s biggest bitch-on-a-stick, who always tried to treat you like a nine-year-old. Imagine your house feeling like a jail.” She looked at Lucy, her eyes large and dramatic.

  Lucy wondered if anyone could feel sorry for Melissa. She’d been to Melissa’s house, that iced white cake on a cul-de-sac in Cincinnati. She’d met Melissa’s stepmother, a small harried woman with two children of her own. Melissa’s stepmother had made a low-fat vegetarian stir-fry for Melissa so she wouldn’t have to wreck her diet with manicotti, which was what everyone else was eating that night.

  “I guess I can’t imagine,” Lucy said.

  “Now, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to fix my lipstick, and then I’m going back out there to skate. And then we’re going back to Jack’s house, and maybe we’ll have a few drinks and watch a movie. In the morning Jack and I are going to load my stuff into his car and get on the road, and you’re going to drive my car back to my house, and then you’re going to take the Greyhound home.” Melissa opened her purse and took out a folded envelope, from which she pulled two twenties and put them into Lucy’s hand. “And you’re going to do it so no one sees you, and if they do see you you’re going to have sudden total amnesia.”

  “And then what?” Lucy said. “What happens tomorrow night, when your parents start to freak?” She thought about Melissa’s father, who’d come to pick her up from youth group conventions—a narrow man in a beige golf shirt and gold glasses, huffing as he carried Melissa’s suitcases. Hanging from the rearview mirror of his car was a Lucite photo holder with a picture of Melissa as a kid, playing a tiny violin.

  “Are you going to help me?” Melissa said. “Or are you going to fuck it all up?”

  “Let’s just go home now,” Lucy said. “Home home. Come on.”

  Melissa leaned toward the mirror and redid her lipstick. “Don’t fuck it all up, Lucy. I mean that so seriously, you have no idea.”

  Lucy went into a stall and sat down. She heard the music swell as Melissa opened the restroom door, and then go quiet again as the door swung closed. She couldn’t believe how stupid they all were. She should call Melissa’s father right now. She should kick Jack’s ass or shoot it off. What was she doing in this roller-rink bathroom? She stared at the back-of-the-door nail salon advertisement, at the gritty tile floor, at the smoked plastic Rollmastr with its eternal roll. All she wanted was to get out of there. She flushed and washed her hands and went to find Melissa.

  There she was, on the far side near the railing, holding Jack’s hand, leading him out onto the polished floor. He staggered a little at first, but then got his balance and began to skate. The Lurex fibers in his shirt caught the light. Melissa skated beside him, her ponytail swaying. Lucy stepped out onto the rink, meaning to catch up with them, do something, pry them apart, but as she started to skate another girl plowed into her. They both stumbled into the carpeted wall of the rink, trying to keep their balance. High-pitched shrieks of laughter came from the sidelines. There, pointing and calling out, were the younger girls from the restroom. The girl who ran into Lucy took a step back and straightened her pink tank top, her face streaked with tears. Lucy wondered if this was Connie, the Connie who had better watch out. “It’s okay,” she said to the girl. “We didn’t even fall.”

  “Fuck you,” the girl said, and skated away.

  At Jack’s house the volume of his mother’s snoring had increased to a roar. Ev
en with the door of Jack’s room closed, Lucy could hear her going. She listened to the snore as they sat on a sleeping bag on the air mattress, drinking peach schnapps and watching a soft-core movie called Wet and Wild West. Lucy’s head felt stuffed with wool. She couldn’t take her eyes from the TV. Onscreen, two women in cowboy boots and Western shirts stood naked in a barn, licking each other’s breasts and rubbing against each other. They looked bored enough to fall asleep. The sound was turned down low in case Jack’s mother woke up, but not so low that they couldn’t hear the soundtrack of sighs and moans. Jack had a hand up Melissa’s skirt. Lucy could see it moving beneath the fabric. Melissa’s eyes were closed and she was breathing fast, but Jack wasn’t watching her. He was watching Lucy, giving her a secret smile. He put his other hand on her thigh and made a slow circle with his thumb. Lucy stared at his hand.

  “I want to make you both happy,” he said. “I want to make you both feel good.”

  Melissa’s eyes snapped open. She looked at Jack’s hand on Lucy’s thigh. “What the fuck?” she said.

  Jack removed his hand from Lucy’s thigh.

  “What the fuck, Lucy? Were you going to sit there and let him do that?”

  Lucy shrugged. It was a good question.

  “Shit, Jack,” Melissa said. “Can’t we go somewhere private?”

  “But we’re all comfortable here,” Jack said.

  “Not me,” said Melissa. She got up and left the room, and Jack followed her. Lucy heard the bathroom door click shut. They were inside together, talking in low voices. Then Melissa began moaning, as if she were performing in the movie herself. Lucy rolled herself into the sleeping bag and closed her eyes. The snores echoed in the hall. Onscreen, the girls climbed coarse-looking ropes. From the bathroom came a series of sharp cries, Melissa’s, rising in pitch. Lucy sat up and drank a glass of water with some ice. She knew why she was there that night: She was there because Melissa wanted a spectator. What good was it to elope to California if no one watched it happen, if no one could go to Nationals and spread the news? It would be the most spectacular thing anyone they knew had ever done. And who better to tell everyone than Lucy, that less-than-pretty girl who had no life of her own?